“It was clear that a number of correspondents were tweeting simply because it was the thing to be seen to be doing. I’m not talking about race fans looking for an outlet for their genuine sorrow and shock. I’m referring to those whose profile in the sport seemed to demand – in their minds, anyway – some sort of statement of grief even though they knew next to nothing about Wheldon and wouldn’t know an IndyCar if they tripped over one while checking out their mentions on Twitter.”

“It meant a lot to win at Monza as it was where I got my first Grand Prix win, but also for the whole team. In particular over the past two years we were struggling a bit, we weren?óÔéźÔäót quick enough on the straights, so to come back this year and win ?óÔéźÔÇŁ for Renault it was the first time they have won there since 1995 was great.”

“The country?óÔéźÔäós only big racing export, Mun Sung-hak, has also struggled to gain traction in his debut season in Formula Two. The England-based driver has found it difficult to compete financially without the same kind of sponsorships that are often available to talented young European drivers.”

Comment of the day

Electrolite wants more continuity among F1 teams when it comes to names:

I don’t want Formula 1 to be a rich men’s playground where investors can stick their noses in and out as and when they feel like it.

I want everyone running the teams to be in it for the long run, at least a few years to become established and such commitment I’m sure would deliver better results with his kind of prevention in place. It messes the people who work for the teams around, messes the fans around, and in the case of BMW with Williams/Sauber, for example, really screws over teams with heritage, an identityElectrolite

From the forums

Our growing collection of F1 drivers in TV adverts now includes Eddie Irvine flogging burglar alarms, Michael Schumacher in a Ford Mondeo and James Hunt with classic comedy duo Morecambe and Wise.

they can protest all they want but i don’t think it will go anywhere. there are no moving parts and i assume the holes are legit. the different modes are engaged passively, similar to the side slots on the rear wings. i would not be surprised to hear the performance is severely compromised by running in the wake of another car.

Hilarious, such an accurate summary of events to come, I look forward to see how all this unfolds over the coming weeks! I see Brawn is on about further tightening the rules for periscope exhaust aswell, Scarbs said on Twitter “i can see what more they can do with other than sticking upwards” Or words to that effect anyway. Maybe Brawn has a trick up his sleeve here also and wants to clarify the regs so nobody else has time to develop that area!?

I think that all teams will be testing the effects of it in their CFD centres right now to see if it helps them.
At the same time they will be looking at how to actually make it work.
In a couple of weeks they will all know where they are (helps them/doesn’t, be able to fine tune/not be able to do so), and go towards making one of these work and at the same time prepare documents asking for clarification of the solution to get Charlie to either ban it or confirm its OK.

Off course @geemac is right about the FIA banning it for the next year if teams actually go along and use it.

Only half of winning in Formula 1 involves beating the competition on the track. The other half is in beating them in the rules – finding ways to get their innovations banned whilst preserving your own upgrades. Why else do you think they’re arguing over the RRA? Teams like Ferrari have seen Red Bull’s advantage, and are trying to get their position within FOTA marginalised so that when the time comes to settle on sporting regulations for 2012 and beyond, Red Bull have no ability to influence the design of cars, and therefore have to play catch-up rather than starting with the advantage.

For all their posturing about “improving the show” (come to think of it, we haven’t heard the party line for a while now), the individual teams don’t actually care about “the show” that much. They’ll be happy to see lots of exciting racing up and down the grid, so long as they are safe out the front. So while half the design team will work on their own version of Mercedes’ front wing, the other half will comb the rules, looking for a technicality to trip Mercedes up in the event that they can’t get the wing to work. It’s frustrating and far too political, but at the same time, if can be fascinating if you accept that it is a part of the sport that will never go away. The teams all want an advantage, and only half of that is design innovation. The other half is playing the rule book.

when on earth did I say they wouldn’t protest? Please stop jumping to false conclusions PM. You write a lot of good stuff, but It wouldn’t hurt to slow down and actually read what the comment actually meant.

What I meant is though the teams will protest, the Merc f-duct is indeed legal and FIA can’t deem it illegal, after deeming f ducts and ddd legal.

On another note, I’m not quite sure whe the link is between FOTA and the sporting regs that you allude to in your comment

They protested on that meaningful but eternaly ignored part of the regs known as the “Spirit of the Regulations.”
Which after all is a fair cop, DDD’s sort of defeated the purpose of the new rules, stalling things has been ban’d for very good reasons for a long time as were the flexi wing protests. Wing faliure is scary.

Still if the front wing duct gets ban’d it’ll be because it’s a stalling device exploiting a loophole not yet closed. Not because the FIA are insidious, F-Ducts DDD’s and EBD’s all ban’d between seasons.

Ah the “Spirit of the Regulations”! If I was an FIA regulation drafter I’d insert the following into the interpretation clause:

“These regulations are to be interpreted in the spirit of Colin Chapman, Gordon Murray and Adrian Newey, that is, in as wide and inventive manner as possible, always recognising that the sport of Formula 1 (TM, ÂŁ10 to be sent to Bernie Ecclestone, Esquire for the privilege of using the term) should always be a technological showcase of all that is good and pure about the automobile. These regulations shall not be interpreted by slavishly and mindlessly adhering to every word herein, and by having a hissy fit when someone else thinks of something you didn’t.”

RB’s front wing is creating the same effect without F-duct mumble jumble. Consequently, all others should go back to ‘the drawing boards’ and CFD tools to achieve the same. Sauber is closest to that, Ferrari is trying hard to make it work, Mercedes went into that direction but didn’t evolve much.
It will be interesting to watch how things, sorry, wings develope…
RB is eons ahead…

All front wings have a job of feeding the diffuser, so I’m not sure what you’re talking of exactly in that sense. Nowadays a lot of teams not only use the wing directly to produce downforce at the surface, but it is also treated as an extraction augmenter to the venturi created by ground effect.

The wing flexing would intensify the venturi effect in that it actually engages ground effect; but I don’t quite see how that in particular would assist in terms of feeding the diffuser.

The ducting that is being proposed for the front wing is not as just the wing feeding the underfloor. It’s about converting the stagnation point of the nose tip to a duct; and redirecting the appropriate mass flow in such a way that it feeds the diffuser.

I don’t understand why Mercedes chose to show the whole world their new gimmick. They could have waited to test it the winter so rivals couldn’t copy it without compromising the rest of the car (imagine what could have happen if Honda chose to test the DD in 2008). I wouldn’t be surprised if Ferrari featured it in Abu Dhabi as part of their “new aggresive design”.

At the same time, this is another time where you’ve got to ask, where are Ferrari? Why can’t they come up with inventions like this? I genuinely can’t remember when the last bit of Ferrari ingenuity (that worked) was.

Unless I’m missing anything obvious, I can only think of the horns that sat underneath the tv camera on the F2006. It really has been that bleak.

I’m pretty sure McLaren and BMW Sauber did the ‘devil horns’ under the camera mounting first.

Ferrari’s attitude of late seems to be “let’s see what everyone else comes up with, and when we know it works, we’ll make out own version of it”. I mean, when their 2010 and 2011 cars were launched, they were both been made up of the ‘best’ bits of other cars.

My hope is that after saying year on year for ages now that they’re going for an “aggressive” and “radical” approach they now mean it. They sure can’t continue down the conservative development path they’ve been on the last few seasons.
They said the wing Alonso was running in Korea was the first part to come out of their new design philosophy. Hopefully they’ll have plenty more to come!

@GeeMac@Icthyes@Scribe The F2008 was actually gorgeous in my opinion. If it didn’t have so many aerodynamic appendages it would have been even nicer. But my favourite Ferrari of the decade is the F2001 or the F2002. They’re both lovely. My favourite looking F1 car of the decade is the MP4-17. Or maybe the Sauber C30. Or the Benetton B201.

@Patrickl@GeeMac
The F2008 was the most unique car on the grid, while it had a fair amount of ugly crap like everyone else it somehow took the swishes and flicks and made them flow beautifully. The whole front assembely was a sight to behold, the wide nose the flowing front wing.

I say this as an ardent McLaren fan and usually very eager to kick Ferrari in their self obssessed “tradition”.

They said the wing Alonso was running in Korea was the first part to come out of their new design philosophy.

in fact, @Colossal Squid, that wing was heavily ‘inspirited’ in Red Bull’s. I suppose that this “inspiration” came from Mark Webber’s Rb7 crashed and rescued at Parabolica.

James Allen said that this “new wing wasnât intended to transform the performance of the 2011 car, but to understand how the front end of the rival RB7 works and influences the aerodynamic balance of the car.”

Considering this approach, Ferrari seems away long of a new and own design filosofy. TheyÂ´re still lost…

surely the hole in the nose from the F2008 was the last one. Then back in 2006, there’s the carbon rims and the hideously looking sidepod mounted mirrors (since almost everyone adopted it later, I guess it worked).

Kimi Raikonen won his first race for Ferrari with a flexing bib splitter. FIA discovered it and made them modify the design for the next race.

This year, dual rate anti roll bars, still on the car and working beautifully. Keeps the car soft and compliant in slow corners for good mechanical grip then stiffens up in the quick stuff for stability at high speed, totally passive and legal system. Very clever!!

Reading this reminded me of a story I read about Ron Tauranac – Brabham’s designer from the team’s early years in the 1960s.

In the mid-1960s, Lotus started a trend of having inboard front dampers (i.e. mounting them inside the monocoque, as they are now) to clean up the airflow through the front suspension. Tauranac failed to follow suit with Brabham and was criticised for being too conservative for failing to even contemplate the idea. What the critics didn’t know, however, was that Tauranac had looked at the inboard damper solution in the windtunnel (a rarity then) and found it made very little difference. Certainly not enough to make it worth living with the downsides of the change, i.e. making it more difficult for mechanics to adjust the suspension, restricting footspace in the pedalbox, etc. Tauranac didn’t shout about his conclusions because he didn’t want to give away an advantage to his competitors.

Which just goes to show that there may be perfectly solid reasons for a seemingly “conservative” approach, even if apparent innovation adds an extra bit of interest for the dedicated fan. Just look at Renault’s side exit exhaust, which hasn’t exactly set the world alight although it did manage to set a couple of R28s going…

Does anyone know what is Joe Saward’s problem in life? I recently started reading his blog and have been harboring a strong dislike for him ever since.

Just read this article: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/back-in-europe/ and his replies to commenters:
“Dave Townrow,
Is there any subject that one can write about that you do not wish to argue about?”
“Amol,
I am curious that you feel qualified to comment on F1â˛s attitude about India, and that you are also an expert on the international impact of F1 races.”

@sumedh – Saward is … well, unreliable. And he can’t take criticism. He’s not very good at hiding his agendas, either.

Late last year, he committed the cardinal sin of presenting his opinion as fact. He’s one of Tonio Liuzzi’s most avid supporters, and he was very upset when Vijay Mallya released Liuzzi from his contract a year early. He then ran a series of articles about how Liuzzi potentially had a legal case against Force India to retain his seat, though he reported it in such a way that made it look like Liuzzi was certain to file against Mallya and would likely win. Even Saward’s most dedicated followers criticised him for it.

Ever since then, Saward had harboured a deep personal dislike of Vijay Mallya, which culminated recently when Mallya and business partner Michel Mol sold a 42.5% stake to the Sahara Group. Saward had previously run an article about how a sale of Force India was imminent, which Mallya subsequently denied. When the deal with the Sahara Group was announced, Saward attacked Mallya for lying and breaking promises. Mallya was actually only getting a new business partner in the Sahara Group, and through his arrangement with the Mol family, he still controls the team. Basically, Saward attacked Mallya for saying something Mallya had never actually said. All of this came on a string of predictions of imminent team sales, that were denied within hours – Saward first claimed that Red Bull would sell Toro Rosso to an Emirati oil group, which they denied. He then claimed that Gerard Lopez and his investors would band together and buy Group Lotus, which was once again denied. He was also talking about a “Chinese investor in the paddock looking to buy a team” which never came into fruition. Despite sticking to his sources, Saward went into the predictions of a Force India sale with a strike rate of zero for three. He needed the be right on talk of a Force India sale because he was running low on credibility.

Then there’s the issue of censorship. Saward has a tendency to delay posts to his blog that he finds to be highly-critical. he’ll often wait for support in favour of him to build before letting the critical posts be added to an article. This makes him look better, and often means the critical posts get lost in the sea of supporting ones. I’m pretty sure I’m banned over there. And when it all gets too much – like when he misled readers over Liuzzi, or when he attacked Mallya – he threatened to take the blog offline for a few days and see what people thought then, as if we’re all supposed to bow down before him and accept everything he tells us without question. I particualrly liked his rebuttal to his critics, which was basically a story of “you don’t like me, so therefore, I must be right”.

In short, Joe Saward has an audience and an opinion and an unshakeable belief that he is right, even when he is consistently proven wrong. He also tends to write more about travelling to and from a race rather than the actual race itself.

@prisoner-monkeys aren’t you describing your own online behaviour rather than Sawards’ here? :-o

I do agree, that he often seems to get too harsh with the comments, but on the other hand, did you ever ask Keith how many horribly bad comments he has to filter out? I guess Saward gets quite a lot of them as well, just as every blog does. It does show a open minded attetude that he keeps trying to answer those.
But it must be hard to keep answering to abusive and repetitive arguments for arguments sake and stay perfectly calm in doing so.

You are right about being too protective of Liuzzi. But the pieces about the STR sale were speculative and more or less right (the team has a new middle east part owner/backer) and the same was true for that FI deal. The fact Mallya might to the law not have actually sold his own existing stock directly to a new partner, does not make it less of a sale.
And the Group Lotus denial of having sold out to GenII was vague and open enough not to contradict a sale of part of the bussiness in the near future. A denial that might be more of not confirming before its all signed and done.

It’s my good friend Dan Thorn’s birthday today, but I’m not going to write a poem, as that’s Magnificent Geoffrey’s job! (Actually, I’m just really bad at them and don’t fancy making a fool out of myself again :P ) So I’m just going to say what I think in plain English.

Dan Thorn is one of the people I first recognised when I decided to become more involved with the F1F community on Twitter, and he was perhaps the friendliest to me from the start. He told me he was from Launceston in Cornwall, whilst I’m from Launceston in Tasmania, which I found remarkable!

Over a year has passed since then, and I’m proud to call him a friend that I confide in and enjoy talking to a lot. He’s also somewhat of a role-model and has given me advice from time-to-time. He’s a quiet chap, but very polite and easy to get along with. I’ve not met him yet, but someday I hope I do, because he’s a great guy and he’s also pretty clever.

He runs a blog, but he doesn’t post anywhere near enough articles. Normally his posts are serious, but his April Fool’s Day article on the top 10 drivers of all time (btw, that’ll be a fiver for the plug, mate) was my favourite.

Anyway, I hope you have a good day Daniel, and here’s wishing you a happy and fun-filled birthday! :)

They’re not. They haven’t come out and said “this is what we’re going to do next year”. They’re already running the front wing. It’s likely the other teams worked out what they were doing long before Autosport reported it.

But I would not be supprised if it actually turned out to be a red herring by Mercedes to get the others to pay attention to this :-D

Seriously, @prisoner-monkeys is right here, Mercedes will not be happy with this coming out when there is still some time for others to copy it (that’s why they cover the opening so no one can look inside).
But its quite unlikely those teams have not been looking into this solution for a while before Auto Motor und Sport published the story

There is a further meeting of the TWG this week concerning the 2012 exhaust regulations and Brawn is issuing warnings about them just as he did over the DDD regs. It would seem that this capture and channelling of airflow to the front wing may also be adaptable to the exhaust exits and rear diffuser.

With technical chiefs due to discuss further the issue of exhaust exits at a meeting of the FIA’s Technical Working Group this week, Brawn believes attempts to restrict outfits to vertical pipe exits may not be strict enough to prevent some exploitation of the regulations.

“I don’t think it is 100 per cent sorted unfortunately, and there is another meeting of the TWG,” said Brawn, when asked by AUTOSPORT about the latest situation regarding exhausts.

“I think everyone, as they get more and more into it, are trying to close off the loopholes, but there is no guarantee that somebody will not come up with some scheme. It is fairly robust, but I would not say it is 100%, and I think the difficulty now is it is reaching a stage where teams will take their opportunities rather than change the regulations.

“Teams go through a period of finding the best regulations they can with good spirit and proper intent, and then you reach a stage where those regulations are fixed with the best intent. But if an engineer comes along with a good idea we have to consider it.

“In our case it is still relatively conventional, but whether someone else will come up with something dramatic I would have to wait and see. I would not say I am confident that there will not be an innovative exhaust scheme because once we have learned something you cannot unlearn it.

“The strength and performance that comes from the exhaust, using exhaust energy, is substantial, and people now have a better understanding of what they can do with exhausts/engine mapping to extenuate the effect.”

Because Ross Brawn has no sense and would rather show off in practice this year than have a faster car next year or maybe because the other teams already knew about what they were doing.

Obviously it’s the latter scenario which makes you wonder how much spying is going on among teams that something Mercedes hasn’t brought to the track is known about.

If rival teams didn’t actually know about it then must be exceptionally complicated to get right hence the testing and letting the cat out of the bag. Whitmarsh said about it “If you make a start now, is already late.”

Or maybe because he is possessed of foresight, @snowman – after all, it was Brawn who brought the potential for double-diffsuers to FOTA’s attention in 2009, and the other teams paid him no heed. Sure enough, Melbourne 2009 came around and there was an uproar over double-diffusers. Since an exhaust-blown diffuser offers a major advantage, Brawn evidently sees history repeating itself and no doubt wants to head off any more furores. The teams have been preaching solidarity recently, particularly when it comes to the Resource Restriction Agreement, making doom-and-gloom prophecies about how FOTA is endangered. One more political wrestling match over the legality of certain parts could be the death-knell of FOTA.

I don’t think I can entirely agree with Maurice Hamilton. There ain’t just one and only correct way to deal with sad news. I also didn’t know much about Dan Wheldon before the tragic accident on Sunday but I felt really sad after getting to know it as I love racing and have huge respect for all guys who do that. Even if they aren’t in F1 and even if I don’t follow the series they race at, I still feel somehow connected to them and their fans. For sure, some condolences might be more PR than reflections of real sorrow but I don’t think we should judge the feelings of those people who express their attitude towards tragic news.

A lot, I guess. And we have to wonder how upset Mercedes is by this getting out in time for others to start working on it as well (might have been a dummy though so others go wasing their ressources ;-) ).

Fact is, Mercedes were the ones who did a passive F-duct system on their rear wing, so they will have a big head start in getting to understand what it needs to fine tune something like that.
Only McLaren might be close, as they did the most work to prepare for their F-duct in 2009, prior to introducing it in 2010.

I guess all the teams have quite a bit of things that only come out by accident, or just by chance from observers. Great to have guys like ScarbsF1 going into these things!

Must be a very complicated thing to get right which is why Mercedes decided to test it at Suzuka and why Whitmarsh when asked about it said “its already to late to start for next year and they are going to be way behind Mercedes on development”

Also it seems as if Whitmarsh already knew about it before it appeared at Suzuka(and probably then the other top teams) so maybe Mercedes had nothing to loose and everything to gain by testing it in the open.

@BasCB @ snowman Although their secrecy may or may not have been compromised, they will of course have an advantage over their competitors, it’s just a case of how much. It’s always very much a catch-up game.

The dummy idea is an interesting one. I read the AMuS article, and they started talking about all the innovations in the current car (also refer to Ferrari subthread above) – but in the end, none of those things were enough to get a good car. In fact, several of those things, the radiators+swb were part of a concept that turned out to be flawed for the current rules.

Maybe teams should just concentrate on getting a better car rather than a more nifty one, fun though all those bits are for me as a fan :)

@keithcollantine – This is what I’m talking about. I know Pitpass isn’t exactly a paragon of reliable journalism, and it’s clearly meant to provoke a response, but it does point out Joe Saward’s habit of predicting team sales, only to have a denial issued by the current owners within hours.

If you hate him so much, why do you talk about him all the time? It is getting tiresome.

To that end, I am forming the “League to get Prisoner Monkeys to start his own blog”, because I’m not interested in reading your rants in the comment section of every article posted on this site. Please, get your own blog. You clearly have enough to write about.

@keithcollantine GOOD.is is one of those politically-correct, goody-goody, vaguely-left-wing, environmentalist site, so I could see that they have an inherent anti-motor-racing site.

I normally like reading their articles – in moderation – but this one really shows they’re completely out of their depth. Apparently Ms. Greenwell thought the only form of motor racing is IRL, because she wasn’t aware of other deaths since Paul Dana!

I would venture a guess that having Al Gore III on board doesn’t make them vaguely-left-wing at all. The wonderfully non-prejeduiced writer should concentrate on areas I think she’s qualified for, like the Wall Street protest, instead of something she clearly admits to having 0 knowledge of, racing anything.

Forgive me for my perhaps callous outlook, but why is she so concerned about life and death?

The drivers make a concious decision to go out on track at speed every other weekend, no one is forcing them to do it. They know the risks and so do we. Death is an unfortunate aspect of the various leagues of motorsport but it is more than outweighed by how much enjoyment and excitement it provides.

Sometimes, people need to look at the bigger picture and remember that we only live once and as sad as death is, it’s just a part of life.

A story coming out of Italy suggests that Adrian Sutil is on his way out of Force India, wth Nico Hulkenberg taking his place in 2012. Itâs apparently been taken from Autosportâs digital edition; the AUTOSPORdigi Twitter feed contains the following:

Autosport mag : Hulkenberg is set to be promoted to a race seat next year alongside Paul di Resta. Story from @eddstrawF1 at @AUTOSPORTdigi

Posted one hour ago. I donât know if the poster, f1enigma is our very own @enigma (or @Enigma â last time I tried to mention him, it didnât work, and if he is indeed enigmaf1, Iâd like to heard his take on it).

@prisoner-monkeys – don’t feel less willing to accept it might be true.
With all respect to a nice F1fanatic and knowledgable fan in @enigma (going by twitter name @enigmaf1) he would be amongst the first to confirm to you that Dimitris Papadopoulu (on twitter as @f1enigma) is a reliable source.

He is also included in Keith’s twitter list under journalists and as @raymondu999 writes below had a few scoops lately.

IMO this is just a fault positive innovation from Mercedes so that other teams has something to think about and concentrate on, to drag their attention to F-duct thingy which will probably get banned before season 2012 starts.. while Mercedes has really some other aces in other areas of the car. I just don’t think they will expose such an huge innovation already at this stage in 2011.

After some pondering, I don’t think the front duct is a stalling device. Rather, I think it used in a similar way to the exhausts on the Red Bull by producing to streams of energised air flow, one either side of the unworked air coming off the mandated central section of front wing. This, virtual skirt may be used to prevent turbulent air from outer wing elements and wheel assembly from entering the clean air in the central section thus feeding the bib splitter and undertray more efficiently thus achieving stronger ground effect with the floor of the car.

I think that sounds quite plausible. It definitely sounds problematic to stall (part of) the front wing while directing more air to the back to produce downforce, so it must be more about cleaning up the flow coming from the front, rather than stalling, I think.

i think the real reason why Mercedes team has experienced the new front wing f_duct is that the team have to understand the entire behavior of the system so the next year car will be designed around ithttp://www.auto.it/res/aperture/as42/16.jpg

Mercedes front wing f_duct is not new, it was used by mclaren in 2008 and was bined after 4 races that was from monza onwards, thats why mercedes have northing to hide coz all teams know about it, they are trying to workout if it can work with the 2012 car before finetuning it

I REALLY want Mercedes to start winning races and championships… however, let’s start with a car decent enough to archieve podium finishes first. I don’t know why, but something about the team has me rooting for them… plus I personally think it’s the best looking car this year, although that does not mean much because it’s quite an ugly bunch these days, at least that’s how I see it…

I can’t remember where I read or heard this, but it was quite a while ago (helps, I know!) but the W02 was thought to be testing out some ideas for 2012, somewhat an ‘experimental’ car. Which would make sense, seeing as it’s been extremes of good and bad, such as low relative reliability, the best DRS system; hard on tyres in race for Rosberg, yet excellent in the race for Schumacher…

Really hope next year sees some sort of shift. The field is very, very competitive however…